Grail
by Kate Christie
Summary: "If you haven't figured out by now that I would do absolutely anything for you, then I have grossly underestimated your ability to ignore the obvious." When Johanna reappears Kate begins to doubt her sanity, until Castle falls down the rabbit hole, too.
1. Chapter 1

Grail

She awoke in her bed, looked through puffy lids at her bedside clock. Four AM.

There was a hole, grief and anger still burrowing deep into her gut.

He had told her. Took her into his office and turned on the board, and there it all was. Months of betrayal and untrue statements. He'd started to explain, but somewhere in the middle of Mr. Smiths and threats of murder and needing more than anything to protect her, the outrage and the disbelief bubbled up. She'd yelled. She'd left. And he hadn't followed.

She was replaying it in fitful dreams. She had been ready, or almost ready, to let herself love him. That was why he must have wanted to tell her.

At least there was that. At least he hadn't let her allow him inside only to let her down after.

He was her constant: the thing she counted on every day to keep her on the right path, the one she trusted most of all, in a world where she had learned to trust sparingly. And now he wasn't.

She was thirsty. Her head ached in the droning, vague way that can only come after a crying jag. These things, at least, she could fix. She rose, got ibuprofen, went to the kitchen. She filled her water bottle from the pitcher in her fridge and downed the pills, chugging back the cold liquid and hoping some numbness would come.

It always had before, eventually. But then, she had thought he was different.

She turned to go back to bed for an hour until her alarm went off.

And then she saw her. The water bottle fell from her hands and clattered to the floor, splashing freezing drops on her feet and shins.

She was just standing there, one hand on her hip, the other balancing on the counter of her kitchen island. Her hair was streaked with gray and her mouth and eyes were framed with a few more lines than she remembered.

Her mother was standing in her kitchen. And she wasn't smiling.

"Mom?" Kate almost didn't recognize her own shaky, cracking voice.

"Katherine Houghton Beckett, just what the hell do you think you're doing?"

She had heard that low, menacing tone directed at her exactly two times in her life. Once when she was ten and had made it a block away from the front door of their building in a half-hearted attempt to run away, and once in high school when she had been at a party with alcohol.

"I... You can't be here."

She took a step forward, but her bare foot kicked her bottle, which clattered against the leg of the table. It drew her attention for only a split second, but when she looked up again, Johanna Beckett was gone.

She blinked, shook her head. But the tears had already welled up.

"Mom?"

Her eyes opened and she sat bolt upright in bed, beads of sweat cooling on her back, goose bumps covering her skin. A chill went down her spine. She looked at the clock-4:10 AM.

"It was a dream. Just a dream." She said it aloud to convince herself.

But the tears were back. She didn't care if it was a dream. For one split second, she'd had her mom back. She'd heard her voice.

She got up on slightly shaky legs and walked to her kitchen. Her empty water bottle still sat on the counter. With a heaviness in her heart so profound she had to breathe to push it aside in order to keep moving, she repeated her earlier actions, filled he bottle, closed her eyes, and turned. When she opened them again, she was alone in her kitchen. The disappointment was as ridiculous as it was palpable. She crossed to her bathroom, found Advil for her achy head, and started to get back in bed. She wouldn't sleep again. Not now.

She went to her couch instead, wrapping a throw around her and pulling her knees to her chest in the corner. Her alarm would be going off soon enough.

She laid her cheek on her knees and shut her eyes, tried to focus on her memory of the dream. Maybe she could at least hold on to the image, tuck it away to pull out when she missed her. Her subconscious must have plucked the image from somewhere deep in her memory: some forgotten moment. But why had she looked so much older? And why had she sounded so furious?

"Katie, why are you doing this to yourself?"

Her eyes shot open. Her gut clenched when she saw her mother, sitting on the chair across the coffee table from her.

She couldn't breathe.

She lifted her head, but the rest of her remained frozen. She was afraid if she moved, the spell might be broken again.

"How are you here, Mom?" Some part of her rational mind knew she must have fallen asleep again.

"I don't care how you think I got here or why you think you can see me. I'm here because you are making the biggest mistake of your life. That man loves you." She wasn't angry so much as incredulous.

"I'm supposed to believe you're here, talking to me in a dream or a fantasy or whatever this is, and instead of telling me you love me, or that you're proud of me, you're here to criticize me about my relationship with Castle?"

"I'm here because if you have ever needed a mother, you need me right now." That hadn't sounded angry. It sounded sad and resigned. But she couldn't wrap her brain around it.

"I can't understand-"

"This is your problem, Katie. You've stopped listening to anything other than what you can categorize and put on a board. Stop trying to dissect how I'm here and start listening to your heart. Does it say that I'm here? Does it say that you need me? I know you still have that girl I knew somewhere inside, the one who believed in fairy tales and ghost stories and happy endings. What would she say?"

"That girl disappeared a long time ago."

"Let me guess, right about the time she lost me. Well, you'd better find her, because she's the one I'm here to talk to."

Her eyes jerked open as the alarm on her phone sounded from the couch cushion next to her.

She looked up, and of course, she was alone.

####

Between the case, her lack of sleep, and trying to avoid a detailed explanation to her team for their lack of Castle that day, she hadn't had the luxury of time to think about her dreams. She'd had just enough time to think about her argument with Castle the night before. Enough time to see his murder board flash before her eyes. Enough time for her heart to sink all over again, so far down she wasn't sure it would ever rise, warm and beating and whole, ever again.

She loved him, she could admit that now, and he'd hidden her mother's case, maybe even her murderer, from her. The single most important person to Kate, the one she'd spent so much of her adult life chasing and defending, the one he should have known better than to conceal, was going to be the end of them.

Why she had thought he would be different, why she had thought she could push her mother's murder aside, she couldn't even fathom now. This was who she was. She was the daughter of a wonderful woman who had been killed wrongfully by a human being, and that person could and would be found. She would do it. It was what her whole life had led up to. No matter what the cost, her mother deserved justice.

As Kate unlocked her door and stepped into her apartment, she saw an envelope on her floor. It was labeled with her name, and it was in his handwriting. It looked like a plain white security envelope, letter-sized. She didn't even bend to pick it up. This was not something she could do at midnight after the day she'd had. And he'd already told her everything she needed to know.

She changed her clothes, took off her make-up, brushed her teeth and told herself that what she needed most was sleep. She tried not to admit how much she was hoping for another dream. No matter if it was just her subconscious talking out of turn, twice the night before she really had felt her mom there with her. Even a memory, when that memory sat with you, talked to you, was better than nothing at all. She couldn't explain it, but she wanted it so desperately.

Unfortunately, her brain was conspiring against her. She stared at the clock for the tenth time since she lay down. 2:07 this time. She couldn't turn off the images of Castle, standing in his office, face lit only by the blue of the screen, watching her as she yelled, his eyes withdrawing from her even as she backed away toward the door.

But he was the one keeping secrets. He was the one going behind her back. He was the one who could have done something stupid and gotten himself killed and ruined any chance she ever had for happiness. For answers. That's what she meant-happiness in finding answers to her mom's case.

"You don't think you should at least give him a chance to explain?"

She turned to find her mom sitting at the end of her bed. She was leaning on one hand against the mattress.

"Why? He told me already. He was 'protecting me.' Between the two of us, I'm not the one who needs protecting."

"That's not the way I see it at all. You're the one who they've already tried to kill. But in the end, the one you really need to be protected from is yourself." It wasn't an accusation, just a matter-of-fact assessment. The kind of statement only a mother can get away with.

Kate sat up, scooted back against the pillows and gave this image, this hallucination, this figment of her imagination, a stony look.

"Whose side are you on?"

"Yours, always. But you can't use that look on me. I invented that look. Ten years in a courtroom and it took you becoming a teenager for me to develop a death glare."

Kate smiled in site of herself.

"God, I was afraid you'd forgotten how to do that." She sounded so genuinely relieved.

Kate didn't answer, just let the silence, the calm of sitting on her bed with her mother, seep into her bones.

"You're not even going to read what he wrote to you?"

"Not tonight. It's too much. I need time to think." She was tired. She didn't know what she wanted anymore.

"You mean time to stew and get even more angry and have the fight all over again in your head without giving him the courtesy of participating?" Her mom had always had this way of weaseling herself into Kate's head and spouting off exactly what she was thinking.

Kate fell back on her tried and true response, and just glared up through her lashes.

"I feel like I'm a teenager, here."

"No, but you are my daughter."

Her eyes stung with that, so much so that her vision began to blur. She didn't want to lose the image of Johanna sitting on her bed; no time for tears. She swallowed hard.

"I miss you." Her voice didn't break this time, but she had to almost whisper to accomplish it.

"So make the most of me while I'm here." Her mother smiled sadly at her, tears pooling in her own eyes.

Again, Kate had no words. For a split second, she wondered what would happen if she reached out, tried to hold her mom's hand. But fear overtook her. She wouldn't burst this bubble of comfort, no matter how much she craved the contact.

"Will you just hear me out on something? Please?"

Kate nodded.

"He's trying to keep you safe. It's exactly what I would do if I could. He's trying to take care of you. I wish you would let him." Her voice spoke of regret, of her own life's failures. But she took on the steely tone she'd used the night before when she spoke again.

"And I'm not going to take responsibility for breaking apart the best relationship you've ever had."

"We're not-"

"Don't even try to tell me you're not in a relationship with him. Your father may let you get away with saying things like that, but I won't be lied to. Not when it matters this much. And don't try to say you aren't blaming me-or some misguided mission to solve my murder and find justice for my memory-for ending this. I won't have it. My legacy, what I want to be known for in this world now that I'm gone, is you-your life, your happiness. And if you go off and get yourself killed trying to find answers I don't need, I will never forgive you. What a waste of everything I ever did for you, ever said to you, ever taught you."

Her mother was crying now. Tears were running down her cheeks. Kate had never been able to handle seeing her mother cry. It made her insides turn out, her heart twist and drop from her chest.

"But how am I supposed to trust him again?"

"Tell me something. Why did you let him follow you? Not at first. I mean why did you let him keep following you, let him be your partner?"

"Because he's had my back."

"Because you trust him."

She just waited. She couldn't refute it.

"Why can't you trust him to keep you out of the biggest trouble of your whole life?"

"It's my trouble." About this she was resolute. He shouldn't bring himself or his family into this fight. The odds were not in their favor.

"Yes, but you're his. He chose to make you his trouble. You let him in, and he took some of your burden. That's how real love works."

"If that's true, then why should he keep it from me? Why couldn't he let me help?" When it came down to it, it was this that hurt most of all. He didn't trust her.

"Because he knows you. He knows you wouldn't have been able to step away right after you went back to work. But he's telling you now. He's letting you help. You proved you could put it aside, and you told him you loved him."

She'd forgotten that, almost, in the midst of everything else. She told him right before he hauled her into his office. And she told him she knew he loved her, too. He said he already knew she remembered. So much for her secret. And rather than take his secret with the acceptance and the grace he had afforded her, she had screamed and stormed out like a petulant child.

"How do I do this? How do I share you, Mom?"

"Haven't you already shared me with him?"

She closed her eyes, pressing her fingers tight against them for a moment. When she opened them, her bed was empty. And she wasn't sitting against her headboard, she was curled under the covers, lying on her side, facing where her mother had just been.

She rose, blinked hard, saw her clock read 2:27, and walked to her door. The envelope was there on her floor, right where she'd left it.

She reached down, took it up in her fingers. Crouched down in her entryway, she slid a finger under the flap, unfolded the page inside.

He'd hand-written the note on plain white printer paper, but from the way the ink had soaked into the grain, little smudges on a few loops and edges, he'd been using his favorite fountain pen.

"If you can say to yourself that you don't want me in your life, then I can accept that.

I don't think you can.

I think you need me-maybe almost as much as I need you.

And if you're still reading this, it means you want me, too, at least a little.

See me. Talk to me. Tomorrow, if you can.

I miss you. I love you.

But you know that already.

-R. C."

She sank down to the floor.

A part of her wanted to call him right then-two thirty in the morning be damned. But she leaned back against her wall, felt her ribs expand against it with her breath. She liked the firmness. She knew what was behind her. She felt each vertebra as it pressed against the hard surface. Predictable, clean, uncomplicated. One surface to reflect off of, one texture to learn, one plane to fit herself against.

That was when she remembered the feel of chest, pressed against hers, his arms wrapping around, stroking and clinging, the stubble from his five o'clock shadow scruffy against her cheek. Nothing about him was one-dimensional. He had curves and planes, at once firm and pliant, soothing and supporting, always changing but ever the same.

She missed him.

She loved him.

Need and want and desperation all swirled inside her and she saw with a sudden confused clarity, this wouldn't be easy, but this wasn't over.


	2. Chapter 2

**Grail Chapter Two**

She awoke to her alarm, curled in her bed. She'd had a blessedly dreamless few hours of sleep after she peeled herself from her floor, Rick's letter clutched to her chest.

Despite the chill and the rain, she went for a run. She needed to clear away the cobwebs. The vividness of the images of her mother had her questioning what was real and what was imagined.

She wondered if she should call her therapist, book an appointment before her regularly scheduled slot next week.

She knew that thought was really just a way to stall, a substitute for the call she really needed to make, the person she ought to see.

As she rounded the corner, heading west toward the Hudson, the wind whipped up, propelling the drizzle horizontally. Stinging drops pelted her face forcing her to blink against onslaught. She turned her head so her waterproof hood could take the brunt of the rain. Through half-shut lids, a red coat caught her eye across the street. The woman wearing it was tucked beneath a black umbrella, walking in the same direction as Kate was running.

That was her mother's raincoat. She had been there when Johanna had found it at Macy's one day, when they were caught in a downpour with a full day of errands to run. It turned out to be her favorite.

Kate moved to cross the street at the next corner, but the woman had a head start and reached the corner first. As the woman peeked out from behind the umbrella, gauging the early morning traffic, Kate saw a flash of long brown hair, streaked with gray. She couldn't see her face.

There were just enough early morning commuters speeding through the slick and puddling intersection to keep her on her side of the street until the signal changed. One big produce truck snuck through on the yellow light, hitting a pool of rain just off the curb and spraying the filthy brown water over Kate's already-wet running pants. She lost sight of the woman in the red coat for just that split second, but when the truck passed, she was nowhere to be seen.

Kate crossed the street anyway, scanning up and down the block in all directions. There was no subway entrance on this corner, so she must have jumped in a cab.

This was absolutely ridiculous. Why was her mind playing these tricks? Hundreds of women in Manhattan had brown hair and wore red raincoats. Her dreams had done this to her-skewed her reality, made her see patterns where there were none.

She was soaked. She was freezing. It was time to get back to the real world. She turned to head back the way she came and ran headlong into a man's chest.

As she tried to back away, apologizing for her carelessness, trench-coated arms wrapped around her, and she looked up into the surprised face of Rick Castle.

"Oh." Wow, brilliant was what that was, Kate.

"You're soaking wet; you must be freezing. Kate, what are you doing running in this rain storm?"

She hadn't noticed that the rain had picked up in the past few minutes. She took in his rumpled clothes, wet hair, droplets of rain sparkling from his eyelashes.

"What are you doing awake at five thirty in the morning in this rain storm?"

He reached an arm out toward the avenue and turned her around, wrapping half his jacket around her with one arm.

A cab happened to stop to let out its fare, and Castle nudged her toward it.

"Come on, let's get you home before hypothermia sets in."

He called her address to the driver as she slid across the back seat.

She couldn't stay still in the cab. As soon as she sat, the bone-chilling cold of the soaked fabric against her skin made her start to shiver. The trembling might have also had something to do with the adrenaline surge from sitting beside Castle on top of the mental frustration of chasing shadows before sunrise.

She couldn't face him, not when he was so close and she was so rattled, so she looked out into the still-dark pre-dawn dounpour. She pulled her hood back and crossed her arms over her chest and rubbed, trying to generate more heat. The cab was warmer than outside, but not by much.

Castle took off his soaked coat and then took it upon himself to wrap his arms around her, tugging her gently but insistently back against his chest. She forced herself to relax, took deep breaths to try to calm her shaking. They weren't far from her apartment, so this couldn't last long, and he was warm.

"You never answered my question." His voice was quiet, right at her ear.

"You didn't answer mine."

"I couldn't sleep."

"Have you been walking all night?"

"Only since around two. It didn't really start raining until five."

He must have walked all the way to her neighborhood from SoHo, no umbrella. And he had to be freezing. He'd probably catch pneumonia at this rate. It was her turn to answer.

"I needed to wake up. Thought the rain would help."

"Rough night?"

"You could say that."

They were silent. She didn't know what to say.

"Did you read it?"

She knew what he meant.

"Yes."

He didn't continue, so neither did she. He just kept her warm. She could feel his chest rising with hers, his warm breath making contact with the chilled skin along her cheek. If they didn't speak, didn't move, maybe they could just keep going like this forever.

But all too soon the cab jerked to a stop in front of her building.

"Come up and get warm." Shit. Why did she say that?

He released her and she turned to face him, trying not to let anything seep through her eyes.

He looked wary and worn. He blinked once, long and hard, then opened his eyes.

He reached into his pocket and paid the driver, opened the door on his side, and stepped out, foregoing his jacket and holding the door open for her. As soon as her clinging clothes hit the cold wind, she was back to shivering. By the time she got her door open, her teeth were chattering.

"I'll get you a towel, and I think I have a pair of my dad's sweats that would fit you. You can change while I shower. Just put your jeans and everything in the dryer."

"Where are you hiding a washer and dryer in here?" For just a moment, he sounded like himself.

"They're in a closet in my office."

She got his towel and dug the sweats out of her bureau, handed them off to him as she hurried to her bathroom.

"You can change in here. Heat's always warmer in this room."

The steam and hot water blasted away the last of the cold from her skin, but she still shivered when she thought about the woman in red. What was wrong with her brain? She felt off balance since the dreams started. If she was honest with herself, her equilibrium tilted a few hours before the dreams.

She stepped out of her tub and turned up her blow dryer, finger combing her hair. She left it slightly damp. With the rain it would start to frizz no matter what she did. Then she realized what she'd forgotten. Clothes. And she'd given him permission to be in her room. Surely he wasn't still there. He'd have changed and left to start the dryer. But if she walked out now in her robe to find him sitting on her bed, oh, that would look planned.

This was not the time for a juvenile romp in the sheets, and if he even thought she would do something so shallow, my God she was so disappointed in him already that it wouldn't even surprise her.

Her blood pressure was up, blood buzzing in her ears, as she cracked the door, steam and warm air billowing around her. No sign of Castle, and he'd closed her door.

Her mother's words from the night before echoed in her head.

"... you trust him."

And this was why. He wasn't the person she had assumed he was three years before. She knew better than that. But she was so angry that it all just spiraled. Enough. No more self-indulgent mental tantrums this morning.

She dressed for work and joined him in her kitchen, where he was pouring himself a cup from a pot of coffee he must have made.

"I found your oatmeal. Not quite pancakes, but at least it's warm. Peaches and cream, or maple and brown sugar?"

Peaches and cream was always her mom's thing. She started buying it last summer when she didn't really have the energy to eat anything solid. She stood at her island, watching the kettle steam, just on the verge of boiling.

"Peaches."

He tore open the packet and poured it in the empty bowl beside his. He turned and fixed her a cup of coffee while the kettle spluttered uncertainly, not quite whistling.

"Thank you." She sat and took a long sip.

"So are we doing this now?"

He sounded in no way optimistic about the prospect.

"I'd like to talk a little. I have some time."

"I figured you were up early for the case."

"Cleared it yesterday. Stayed late to finish the paperwork. I don't need to leave for a while, unless I get a call."

She was staring into her coffee, trying to tamp down the anger and the disappointment once again.

"Castle, do you trust me?"

The kettle screamed to life, and he plucked it off the burner, pouring boiling water into their bowls.

He passed her her mother's oatmeal and a spoon to stir. Then he just stood there, stirring, not meeting her eyes.

"Of course I do. You're my partner."

She looked up from her bowl then.

"That's not what I meant."

She took a breath to try to take the frustration out of her tone. This was what she was afraid of. It was too soon, too hard. She had too many bruises from the last go-round. This couldn't work. But something was pushing her to try.

"Let me ask it a different way. Why didn't you tell me what you were... doing, what you knew, months ago?"

Now he looked up, eyes shooting daggers. Maybe she wasn't the only one who was angry.

"Kate, I told you. If you got involved, they would kill you. They did a pretty good job the first time they tried. They didn't need another chance."

"Just because you told me what you knew, I wouldn't necessarily have gotten involved."

"Bullshit. You know very well that from the day you went back to work you were a loose cannon. You were yelling at firemen out in public. If that guy had been involved, you'd have been dead by that night. So to answer your first question, no, at that time I didn't trust you." He spat out the last sentence as though it were a bad taste in his mouth.

"Well, now the feeling is mutual." She took a bite of her oatmeal.

"Do you even want to try to fix this?" He'd quieted, some of the fight had left him.

"I'm not sure we can. I'm really-" she wasn't sure she could even say it without yelling, but she took a breath, clenched her hands around her bowl and spoon to stop their shaking, and tried, "-furious. And I don't know what to do with it." Her voice cracked at the end, so she just stopped.

This had been a very bad idea.

"Maybe this was a bad idea." She mumbled it, almost to herself as she shifted her attention back to her coffee mug.

"No! No, I refuse to believe that talking about this, about what we are feeling, openly and honestly for once in our lives could possibly be worse than not talking!"

For three months. She didn't need for him to say it. It rang loud and clear.

For the first time in all this mess, he was the one who yelled. She heard him suck in a breath after his outburst. At the upper edge of her vision, with her eyes firmly fixed on the mug of coffee she had drawn up to her lips, she saw him place his hands down on the counter and lean toward her, waiting her out until she finally looked up.

When she did, she saw immediately her own anger reflected back in his eyes. His face was flushed, nostrils flared, eyes narrowed. So maybe her mom had been right, he did have more to say.

"Alright, so we keep talking. But we're not going to finish this in an hour. Are you coming to the precinct?"

He closed his eyes and his shoulders relaxed.

"Maybe I shouldn't."

"Fine."

She took another long drink of coffee and put down her mug.

"You should start." She actually thought she could get better control of herself if she didn't have to talk yet. He didn't pause, didn't hesitate even for an instant.

"I love you."

As he said it, everything about his face changed. His eyes softened, and saddened, like he knew this might be his last chance to tell her.

"I love you, too."

The words were out of her mouth, shocking her ears with their quiet resolution, before she could even process the thought in her brain.

"So that's where we start."


	3. Chapter 3

**Grail 3**

She was sitting at their booth in Remy's with her chin resting on her hands, contemplating how bad of an idea this breakfast was when she heard the laugh. It hadn't come from inside the diner-she heard it thin and muffled through the window. Her head snapped over to search for the source.

She knew it was nuts. Maybe she was nuts. But that was her mom's laugh. A group of tourists was ambling down the sidewalk, staring up and paying no attention to where they were walking. A couple of older, suit-clad men were going the opposite way, briefcases in hand despite the fact it was a Saturday. No one was laughing.

Okay, enough of this nonsense. She'd stolen five hours of dreamless sleep the night before without a single image of her mom. Why did she suddenly have to be reminded of her while waking, too? She'd worked hard not to remember, just to keep herself sane.

She thought back to the morning before. After that pre-dawn hour of hashing out exactly what she was so upset about, she had felt marginally better. Castle had sat and listened without interrupting while she told him she was angry both at the secrecy and the lack of trust on his part. She'd even admitted she didn't know if she could have stepped away had he told her everything he knew. She hadn't yelled, but she had been honest with him. That was something. Maybe that was everything. She couldn't be sure.

Everything was still painful and fuzzy, like most of her summer, except this time she would have given anything for the hurt to be physical. She had learned to contain, compartmentalize and fight the deep, cutting pain of her incisions. This pain, the betrayal, she had no defense against. But parsing it out, speaking the words out loud, had actually helped.

And he'd admitted he knew that keeping his information a secret would hurt her, but he'd still done it considering the alternative—her death.

They had stopped before either of them mentioned the fact that with his current plan, his death was just as likely. When she'd needed to leave for work, he'd walked to her car with her and lingered.

"Meet me for breakfast tomorrow? Neutral ground—Remy's. You're off, right?"

She had nodded warily.

"I just, I don't want to get into the habit of not seeing you. We don't have to talk about any of this. We can just drink coffee and read the _Times_."

He had sounded so desperate that she'd agreed. And now here she was, having auditory hallucinations of her mother's laughter.

Her eyes continued to rove the sidewalk as she mused, but she snapped out of the haze when she saw Rick round the corner. He had no way of knowing that she was watching, couldn't have seen her from this distance, and she couldn't help but notice the stress rolling off him in waves. His shoulders rounded down, eyes on the sidewalk, hands in the pockets of his coat. He looked about as exhausted as she felt.

She turned from the window as he approached, maintaining the illusion of ignorance.

When he walked in the door, his look had completely reformed. He had a smile for her when he saw her that almost reached his eyes, and his shoulders were back, spine straight.

She sat up straighter in response and took a sip of coffee.

"Hi." He slid in behind the table.

"Hey there." She almost smiled, pressing her lips together instead.

They did exactly as he'd suggested: chatted about Alexis and her college search, his mother's acting school, Ryan and Esposito's antics from the day before, and the case she had closed without him. He had a paper with him—he passed her the sports and the arts, kept the front page for himself. They ate omelets. He commented that his smorelet was better. It was light, but it was forced.

He folded his section of the paper and looked over it at her, intentionally brushing his knee against hers under the table. She held his eyes and didn't shift her knee away. He met her stare with desperate eyes she had seen only with bombs and in a freezer, like that tiny point of contact between their denim-clad legs was all he was clinging to.

"Come see it."

She didn't ask what he meant—there was no need.

"I don't know if I can."

"No one will be home all day. You want to." He blinked, engaged her eyes again. "I know you do."

She nodded and they gathered their things, finally separated their knees as they slid to the edge of the booth. He didn't try to take her hand, and she was glad. She couldn't, not knowing what she was on her way to see.

####

"I can't do this. I can't stand here and not let it affect me. Castle, this-every detail, every life you have laid out so neatly on your story board like the plotline of your next book-this is mine!"

She waved her open hand at the images and bulleted text outlined before them.

He wasn't calm, wasn't patient or measured in his response.

"Well guess what, Kate? So am I. I'm your friend; I'm your partner; and if you would just let me, I would be a hell of a lot more!"

His voice rose to a pitch she'd rarely heard. Seeing him so unhinged was unexpected. She didn't know how to respond to a version of Castle that chastised. He kept going, gesturing with his own open hand at the board.

"And this? This is yours, yeah. But it's been mine for a lot longer than the 10 months I've had it on my smart board. I told you about this, I shared this with you because I want you know-I need for you to know. But the knowledge comes with a price. You have to share."

She was not going to cry in front of him. Tears were welling, but she'd fought them and won so many times, she could push them down again.

God damn it! She blinked and they spilled over in hot trails down both cheeks. She wrapped her arms around herself, vision blurred, everything overflowing. When she tried to look up, he was moving toward her, arms extending.

"Don't touch me!" She almost didn't recognize her own voice, so shrill and yet wavering. She held up a hand to ward him off.

"Leave me alone." She covered her face with that hand and clutched the other one tighter against herself as she turned away toward the door.

His voice had taken on more of its usual even timbre, with an edge of resolve.

"You need to understand something, Kate. You need to hear this now. You will not be alone in this. I'm in the middle of it, and I'm not leaving."

She felt the weight of his hand on her shoulder blade. It stopped her in mid-stride, heading half-blind toward the door. She stayed frozen there, took two deep breaths through her nose. Just one more and she would have it tamped down enough to get out of there.

He stepped in front of her, blocking her path.

"And I'm not letting you leave either."

Instead of that last controlled exhale, she heard a sob escape, along with more tears. She was shaking. She couldn't do this, not in front of him. Not when she was still so furious.

"Kate, please."

It tore through her, his desperation, his steadfast belief that they could do this together.

And then she let go.

She let go of all of the anger and the betrayal and the fury that had blinded her, and she went into the comfort of him. She felt his chest firm before her, his arms tight around her, his scent infusing into her psyche—all of it soothing, all of it without judgment or fear.

She cried against his shirt, tears seeping through to his skin. And he waited, as he always had, for her to be ready.


	4. Chapter 4

**Grail Chapter 4**

Kate woke up slowly, feeling the now-familiar sluggishness of her puffy eyelids opening. She was pressed against Rick's chest, half-sitting on his lap on the long end of his couch. She was embarrassed to admit that she hadn't really minded, or even noticed, when he led her out of the office, trembling and crying in his arms and sat them down here.

She wasn't sure how long she had been out, but she remembered his palm rubbing circles on her back while he hummed reassurances, warm breath against her ear soothing as much as the words themselves.

She hadn't broken down in the presence of another person since her mom died.

As consciousness overtook her, she realized Rick was asleep, too, chest rising regularly under her cheek. She considered how best to disentangle herself from his solid arms to avoid waking him. Escape was her only real priority now that she had slept off the edge of her anger and despair. Now she was settled firmly into embarrassment.

She just barely lifted her head from his chest, and Rick startled awake, tugging her tightly against him with some reflex she didn't quite understand.

"Hey." She rubbed under her eyes, trying to minimize the mess.

He unclenched his iron grip on her enough that she could pull away slightly and look down at the splotches of tear-diluted mascara, liner, and shadow that now leeched into the crisp cotton of his button-down. She touched her fingertips to the stains, felt that they were still damp.

He inhaled at the contact of her fingertips against his chest, seemed to lift himself up from sleep, take in the desolation of her face, the weakness of her body as she lay still against him.

"I'm sorry about this." She met his eyes then.

"No reason to be." He was assigning himself the blame, slipping it silently from her shoulders. "Least I could do was catch you when you fell."

He was stroking his hand up and down her back again, making her want to bury her face right back where it had just been, breathe in his scent, hear his heart beating.

She did what she knew best, made light of it, took it all back on herself, piled it higher even, just to prove she was strong enough to stand up against it.

"That ledge and I? We made friends long before you walked into the 12th. This isn't the first time. Not the worst, either. It won't be the last."

She pulled away then, felt a little of her spurious strength stay behind.

"Stay, Kate."

She could tell from his tone that even he didn't believe she would.

"I don't think I should. I need to… I ought to go home."

Her head was nagging at her again, and she knew she must look worse than she felt. This was nothing she wanted to share.

"Go wash your face. Freshen up. I'll get you a glass of water. See how you feel. You still have some time."

There was some stubborn instinct to stay surfacing. Some part of her that didn't want the solitary apartment waiting for her.

"There's a drawer by my sink full of whatever you need."

She rose, clouded and heavy, took his implied invitation into his bedroom. As she turned the handle on the door she assumed led there from his office, she vaguely noticed that he hadn't followed her. For once he wasn't playing the perfect host, getting a towel out for her, opening doors, shuffling and hovering. Good thing. She would have suffocated, and she would have left.

As it was, left alone to her own devices in his bedroom, somewhat dark with closed shades blocking the afternoon sun, she looked around. Making a full turn, she saw the giant elephant on his wall. Figured.

She made her way to his bathroom, flicked on the light switch, was glad the compact fluorescents around the mirror took a moment to come up to full strength. She found a towel in the closet, then honed in on the drawer. He hadn't been lying. Now, cotton balls…in the little glass and stainless steel canister on the counter.

She swiped at the eye makeup until the cotton came away clean, then grabbed a face wash that probably cost more than her perfume. She lathered and scrubbed and rinsed and buried herself in the mundane task of washing away her own tears. As she was splashing warm water over her face, she felt warmth behind her. Not exactly a hand caressing her back as she leaned over the sink, more like the memory of one.

She looked up into the mirror, unprepared for the cold slam of her heart into her throat.

"Oh my God!" She gasped at the reflection of her mother's face, her mother's hand reaching out toward her.

She straightened and turned to look over her shoulder, and found…

Castle's face. Castle's hand.

He inhaled, sharp, afraid, as his fingers retreated from their path toward the small of her back.

The two images were superimposed, flickering in her vision, until she saw her mother's blue eyes looking back through the frame of his lashes and lids.

She choked out a sound halfway between a sob and a plea. Her hands shook as she reached behind her to turn off the water. She fumbled the knob. He was there, twisting it off and handing her the towel she had laid out, as she dripped on his countertop.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to scare you."

She scrubbed her reddened skin with the towel, attempting to wipe all the vestiges of her irrational vision from her expression. She stayed buried in the warm, dark redness of the soft fabric for a moment, willing her nerves to quiet. She exhaled, tried desperately not to be sick.

"Your hands are shaking. Do you even know you're crying?"

Shit. She didn't know it.

And now she had to leave.

In an instant, she was out into his living room, grabbing her keys, not looking over her shoulder as he called after her. She heard his footfalls close behind, so she started running. She had the door open and then slammed shut behind her, passed the elevator to make for the stairs. When she fell into the back seat of the cab, she called her address to the driver and put her head between her knees. She was still fighting hard to breathe, to push down the nausea, the dizziness, the clawing, sticky warmth of realization.

This was not a dream.


	5. Chapter 5

**Grail Chapter 5**

She went straight to her kitchen, tried to pour a glass of water from the pitcher in her fridge, but her hands were shaking too much. She filled her glass from the tap instead and gulped the lukewarm liquid down, set the glass on the island, laid her forehead against the cool metal surface and looked at the floor.

Her subconscious just kept running over and over it. There was no question in her mind that she had seen her mom. And her mom had been smiling—softly, tentatively, wistfully—back at her in that mirror image.

She was crazy. She needed to tell Burke. He could explain it. He could talk her out of it—tell her why her PTSD was suddenly manifesting itself as her murdered mother incarnate.

She jumped when she raised her head and found Castle standing at the other end of the island, leaning against it on one arm, considering her. She hadn't even heard him open the door. Wait, how had he opened the door?

"How are you here?" She was fighting for the slightly rough but even tone of her voice.

"I followed you—took a cab." He blinked at her as though he didn't understand her surprise.

"No—" she pointed to her kitchen floor "—I mean here."

"You left your door open." He nodded slightly back and to his right, toward the hallway to her door.

She really was losing it. She shook her head slightly.

"I-You can't be here."

He just kept up his intense gaze, eyes probing, seeking truth from the façade.

"Why are you doing this to yourself?"

He'd spoken quietly, with unnerving calm. She felt her adrenaline surge anyway. Goosebumps rose on the back of her neck.

"What?" She sounded breathy even to herself.

Something tingled at the base of her brain, forcing her to pursue it. Her voice was slightly more forceful this time.

"Why did you ask me that?"

Neurons were firing, replaying a conversation from her couch with a figment of her imagination.

He ignored her question and just pressed on, direct, and deliberate, and infuriatingly steady. He advanced a step toward her.

"Why are you running away? If you're still angry with me about your mother's case, fine. But I don't think that's it. This is something else. You're spooked, and you don't get spooked."

"Castle, you need to leave me alone."

She stepped back but was stopped by the cold metal of her refrigerator. If she could get some distance, get some space… she was cracking apart. All she could do was breathe slowly, fill her lungs with cool air, concentrate on exhaling and let some of the adrenaline pulse out with each breath.

She was going to shatter right in front of him.

"I'm just trying to take care of you. I wish you'd let me."

Oh god. She tried to retreat, hit the metal door again, and side-stepped around the island. He shifted his trajectory, took one more step toward her.

"Where—why did you just say that?" It had come out shrill and accusing and she couldn't help it.

"Because it's true."

Still so calm, but with a hint of indignation.

"No, why did you say those words?"

Rick was still pursuing, but his eyes flicked away from hers for a split second.

"I don't know."

She had backed into her living room, and she startled when her eye caught the garish colors of her favorite Armageddon on her wall. She anchored her focus back on Rick.

"Yes, you do. You're lying. Where did those words come from?"

"It's stupid, you'll think I'm stupid." He returned his eyes to hers, abashed. She stopped backing away.

"No, no believe me, I want to know." Her traitorous vocal cords finally started cooperating.

He stopped advancing.

"I don't… Telling you this is going against my sense of self-preservation. It's embarrassing."

She just kept her glare focused on his blue eyes. It wasn't because she was looking for signs of another pair surfacing.

"Fine. I was signing at a comic store this week. I got into a conversation with a fan at the end. She said it, about Nikki Heat."

####

"Mr. Castle? I'm sorry to bother you. I'm so late; I didn't even think you would still be here."

"You just barely caught me. Do you want to go in and get a copy for me to sign?"

"Actually, don't hold this against me, but would you sign this instead? Truth be told, I'm more of a fan of Nikki Heat than I am of the comics."

"Me too, actually. It's a good thing my publicist is gone, or else I'd probably lose my royalties for admitting that in public."

"In the novels, you can really get inside her head. She's very complex; beyond what she does for a living, her struggles are compelling."

"Well, thank you. I can't really take the credit though. I have great inspiration."

"The detective you follow."

"She's way more complex than Nikki."

"There's one thing I don't understand, Mr. Castle. Why does Nikki keep doing this to herself? She has this wonderful man who is just trying to take care of her. I wish she'd let him."

"So do I."

"So why don't you write it that way? You are the author after all."

"It's complicated."

"I'm sure it must be."

"It wouldn't be honest to write the character that way right now."

"And honesty is something you value in your writing, isn't it?"

"Very much."

"Well, then, you should be honest, with Nikki."

"Who should I make this out to?"

"Make it out to J. J., if you would."

####

Her mind was numb. Richard Castle had met her mother. In a comic book store. Those were the same words. The exact same words.

"What did she look like?"

Rick gave her a funny look, the vague, unsettled one he only used when the two of them were out of synch. He answered her anyway.

"I don't know. Tall, long grey hair, big sunglasses. She had on this bright red trench coat—I remember because she was in a power suit underneath, very professional, and then this crazy coat blowing around in the wind."

She could feel the blood draining from her face and watched his expression change from the slight embarrassment of confessing he had used a fan's line about Nikki Heat on her back to concern.

She felt herself sway slightly, stepped back to catch her balance, backed into the long end of her couch. She blinked, trying to get the dizziness to pass. She didn't notice him crossing the room until his hands slid warm under her forearms, held under her elbows.

"I think you should sit."

She wanted to. Part of her wanted to sit here with him, tell him all of it, let him in. She needed her partner. She'd been flailing for days trying to figure it out on her own.

But her memory flashed again to her mother, sitting across from her on this couch.

She had to escape.

She broke away from his gentle grip and in a second was in her room, door shut, tipping her forehead against it. She turned the lock on the knob.

She was trying so hard to digest it—this visitation he'd had. If he'd seen her, then maybe Kate had, too.

Maybe she wasn't insane.

But the alternative was perhaps more terrifying. It meant her mother was there, watching. It meant she could see every mistake, every omission, every denial.

In the back of her mind, she had always hoped that her mother was watching over her, seeing all the good she was doing, all the evil she had ended in the world. But she had never let herself imagine that her mother could see everything. It was easier, sometimes, when the grief swamped her, to have a mother who Kate's imagination could control, rather than a flesh and blood woman, one who could insist, argue, point out flaws and faults in her life's plans.

With this, she faced the possibility that all along she'd had both—ethereal, perpetually happy, pleased, and impressed angel, and pragmatic, critical realist. But in that difficulty, in that unholy burst bubble of an afterlife, Kate suddenly found comfort. Because at no time in her mother's life had Johanna Beckett been ethereal, perpetually happy, or an angel.

She had been human. She had been pushy. She had been intrusive. She had tried to tell her daughter what to do.

And now, it seemed, she was doing it again.

Kate realized as she surfaced that she hadn't heard any noise from her living room. No sounds of feet walking down her hall, no lock turning on her front door, no slam as he left. She needed to lay eyes on him, even if she still couldn't explain. She needed to let him know she wasn't quite so angry anymore.

She unlocked her door and softly turned the knob, peeking out through a small crack.

He wasn't there. She opened it wider and stepped through, scanning her kitchen and living room.

She walked toward her office door, which was open as always, and finally saw his back.

She stepped soundlessly behind him. He was in front of her makeshift murder board. He'd opened it, and he'd pull down a photo of her mother. As she closed in on him, she saw he held something in his other hand. Her copy of _Heat Wave_, open to the inside of the front cover.

He seemed frozen in place, didn't move even when she was close enough for him to feel the warmth of her breath on his shoulder. He was staring at the photo, eyes flicking back and forth to the page.

Her eyes fell on the heavy stroke of a Sharpie, written in a familiar scrawl.

####

April 17, 2012

J. J.,

You've made me realize what I've been missing.

–Rick Castle


	6. Chapter 6

**Grail 6**

**Find me on Twitter now. ( kate_christie_ )**

"Johanna Johnston, her maiden name."

He finally took a breath. She hadn't seen him breathe since she'd walked in behind him.

"I couldn't see her eyes. She—she had on these big sunglasses. I just… I never would have even thought…"

There was no reason for him to have thought that he would meet her dead mother outside a comic book store. A weight lifted from her shoulders, her heart, when she knew he had put the pieces together. But was this book that he had signed really hers?

She took the novel from him, paged through to the middle. When she found it, she shut her eyes briefly. She had read most of _Heat Wave_ in Central Park the fall it came out, and one day a giant maple leaf had landed next to her on her bench. She'd sentimentally used it to mark her place because she liked the scene, and ever since there had been a leaf-shaped yellowish tinge on page 101.

"It was on your bookcase, but it wasn't with my other books. Sticking out kind of. It's yours, isn't it?"

"Yeah. It's mine."

He put her mother's photo back on her murder board.

"You've seen her too, haven't you? This is why you've been so off balance."

She just closed her eyes and dropped her head, clutching the book to her chest.

"I've never seen you like this—even with the sniper case, you were never so frightened. I thought it was me and my investigating, but that wasn't it at all."

She opened her eyes again and looked at Johanna's picture on the board.

"I thought I was just dreaming about her."

"When? When did it start?"

He was looking at her so intently—even with her eyes away from him she could feel his burning into her.

"The night you told me."

She took a breath, released it slowly. He swallowed, in preparation for an admission of sin.

"I wouldn't have told you if it wasn't for what she said to me that day."

She shut her eyes again and nodded slightly, opened them and looked up at him, finally meeting his eyes as she spoke. She had her center, her steadiness back. It was hard to credit it to anything other than having him by her side, believing without any explanation that what she had experienced was real.

"Then I think I owe her a great debt of gratitude."

"So do I."

Rick had gotten hold of her gaze, and he turned toward her to maintain it.

"You must have thought you were losing it."

"I might have."

She knew he had seen her break down. She just couldn't own up to how much of it was rooted in her doubting her own sanity. Funny how at this moment he wasn't questioning his own, or hers, for that matter.

He was staring her down, serious, earnest.

"Kate, you are not crazy."

Something inside her snapped. _Heat Wave_ hit the floor as she reached both arms around his neck and pulled him down into a desperate, seeking kiss.

His body resisted for a moment, his lips tight together as her tongue swiped out against them, his arms stiff at his sides. He moaned against her mouth.

And then he melted.

There was no other way to describe the suddenly fluid motion of his hands on her back, in her hair, his lips parting, his tongue pressing softly against hers as he opened for her. He pulled her tight against him, drawing her in, holding her up.

Every crack in her soul was mending, filling in with the waves of love and desire and… home that were crashing into her. And suddenly she didn't care that maybe bits of him were intermingling. She didn't care that after she let these parts of him meld with her she might not ever be able to separate them again.

She had always been stronger with him. Strong on her own, but she couldn't argue with the force of their synergy. At least she couldn't argue with it anymore. Not now. Not when she had found this glorious give and take completely outside of a case or an undercover kiss or a life-or-death situation.

He gentled before she wanted to, but she let him pull back, meet her eyes.

The look he gave her, all dilated pupils and flushed cheeks and swollen lips, was shifting things inside her. She was shifting.

She didn't want to push him away anymore.

She wanted to take him to her bed, and she wanted them to remember, together, what it meant to be alive, and in love, and sharing the same space in the universe.

She found one of his hands and gripped it tight, then she turned and pulled him behind her out through the living room and into her bedroom. When she finally stopped her forward motion, turned to look at him, she saw he was questioning this.

"I love you, and I want you, and you know that's been true for a long time, but we shouldn't—"

She again closed the distance between them and kissed him hard. Her hands dealt with the buttons on his shirt quickly, moved to the button and zipper of his jeans. He was threading his fingers through her hair, then squeezing her straining biceps and deltoids as she moved. She felt the moment when his resolve snapped. It was all up to her now. He was following her lead.

His mouth was alive against her—tongue delving deep, teeth trapping her lower lip, nose pressing into her cheek. She couldn't get enough. He was her drug, he was her salvation; he had saved her, again.

She shucked off her blouse, he stripped off his button-down and pants. They were in this, and she couldn't see them stopping now.

He was bare before her and she was sliding down jeans and underwear with one sure grasp of her hands.

And then they stopped.

They stood naked before one another, not touching, not talking, just watching each other, just being near.

She stepped in first, wrapping her fingers around his ribcage, taking in his physical form almost as an afterthought. They were so far beyond this step in so many ways that it seemed trite when her stomach muscles clenched at the sight and the feel of his arousal. She knew he wanted her, had wanted her, from the first. Her body had reacted to him for so long, it seemed obvious that she would be ready for him.

He backed her up toward her bed without kissing her, kept his distance from her lips, scrutinized her expression. He laid them out over her mattress, scooted up so they could pull down the covers, crawl inside that warm cocoon.

The late evening light filtered through her bedroom door, was enough to give them both a glow they didn't deserve. She'd been run ragged for days, he probably hadn't slept either, but this was them, and this was how they would take each other.

He finally touched her—really touched her, with his warm, firm palm to her breast and his wet, soft lips to her neck. Something gave way as he made contact. He covered her, pressed her down with his weight.

Her legs parted, one hooked over his hip.

Still, there was no hurry. They came to this place from a long walk rather than a quick sprint. No reason to change that pace now.

His tongue traced down her neck, crossed her collar bone swiped the outer curve of one breast.

When he pulled her nipple into his mouth she couldn't stop the cry that escaped her lips.

He suckled, nipped, soothed, then kissed across to give the same attention to her other breast.

As she felt his tongue working over her sensitive flesh, she gasped and arched up and against him. The movement only served to force her further inside his warm, wet mouth, and he hummed against her.

She felt his arousal against her, nearly where she needed it.

She canted her hips toward him, positioned herself to accept him.

He released her breast and hovered over her, searching her eyes.

"I can't go back, Kate. Not after this. Not with you. If we do this now, we do this forever."

"Forever is a long time, Castle. What about for now?"

She was shirking her side of this commitment; she knew it even before she saw the flicker of disappointment in his eyes. But then something else took its place—determination.

"I'm not satisfied with 'for now' for us anymore."

"Good. Neither am I."

She hooked her heel behind him and drew his hips down, guiding him as he made contact with her entrance.

"I love you."

They had said it at the same time.

He pressed inside her, slowly, slowly, and all the fear, all the anger, all the uncertainty dissolved in the onslaught of sensation.

He set a gentle rhythm, eyes open and on hers. She met his every movement with her hips, with her heart.

When she couldn't take the tenderness any longer, she rolled on top of him and sped their pace, finding just the right angle, just the right force.

His breathing was ragged, eyes drifting closed in concentration and pleasure with every stroke up and into her, as she neared her peak.

He must have heard the change in her breathing, because his eyes shot open again, fingers gripped her hip bones to pull her tighter against him.

His thrusts became more forceful, and she let out a breathy little cry each time he snapped his hips to press deeper inside.

She felt the pleasure coiling fast and hard at the base of her spine, knew she was just on that delicious edge. She needed him in synch, needed this loss of control to happen together.

"I want you with me."

He nodded up at her and spoke with a degree of control she no longer possessed.

"Right here. Go. I'm with you."

She felt the first clench of her release and fought to keep her eyes open, wanting to see him.

She cried out his name as she fell, just as he arched up and spilled inside her.

As she dissolved into aftershocks, feeling him react as her internal muscles gripped him, he pulled her down against his chest. His lips were in her hair, against her ear when he spoke.

"Just promise me this wasn't a dream."

She smiled against his damp skin.

"I've never been so sure of anything in my whole life."


	7. Chapter 7

**Grail Chapter 7**

**Last chapter.**

**Twitter: kate_christie_**

**Tumblr: kathrynchristie**

Warm.

She was warm.

It was the first sensation that flooded her as consciousness surfaced. Kate never woke up warm anymore. Sometimes covered in sweat, sometimes coiled up in her sheets, legs twisted tight, but always with a chill creeping. Most days she couldn't tell if the cold was slipping in from the room, or seeping out from her bones, but either way, it was always there.

But not today.

Today, she might as well have been lying on a beach, baked with sunshine, caressed by warm winds.

And there was something else strange about this awakening. There was a comfortable weight across her waist, another against her chest. Not enough to pin her, but enough to hold her firm, keep her grounded.

She breathed deep. The weight on her chest stirred slightly. Something scraped lightly against her skin there. Her brain finally began to register the scents she had taken in: sandalwood, Aveda hair gel, and Castle.

Her heart skipped a few beats before she remembered.

Castle was in her bed.

She opened her eyes then, saw his hair ruffling in the slanting moonlight from her window every time she exhaled. He was still asleep. She watched his ribcage expand with every breath, his backbone disappearing under the edge of her navy blue sheet.

He was sprawled on top of her; there was no other way to describe it. One bent knee over her leg, arm wrapped possessively around her middle, hand tucked securely between her flank and the mattress, shoulder over her ribs, cheek and chin pressed into her chest just below her collar bone.

Not that this was at all out of place. He had possessed her pretty thoroughly the night before.

Delving tongues and nipping teeth and ripping fingers and squeezing palms had given way to patient lips and thorough caresses. The hurry dissolved when they found themselves naked, skin to skin.

No advance, no retreat, just desire coalescing.

She remembered moments and images in waves, and suddenly she remembered his eyes, how they fixed on hers, refused to let her disengage. She had never experienced that stark intimacy in bed—filters off, soul bared. It had terrified her, and it had freed her.

She must have slept hard—no dreams, good or bad, had interrupted, and she had no idea what time it was.

They had fallen asleep still tangled together in the early twilight, so spent from the emotional upheaval of the past days that neither could even think of budging from the bed for clothes or dinner or anything other than the sensation of pressing against each other.

But, oh, food. She shouldn't have thought of food. She looked over to her clock. Only midnight. There were still places that would deliver at midnight.

She suddenly wanted chow mien.

Fuel for another round. Maybe two. They had lost time to make up for.

Her stomach growled loudly as if answering her brain, and Rick's ear being so close to the noise, it was enough to wake him.

He inhaled deeply, nuzzled against her chest, and then spoke in the deepest, sexiest voice she'd ever heard from his lips.

"Definitely not a dream."

He lifted his head and looked down toward her pinking skin, scraped a bit by his stubble.

"Hmm?"

He smiled up at her with his ten-thousand watter.

"I would never have drooled on you in a dream."

She giggled at him. She couldn't remember the last time she had laughed, even just this little bit.

He pulled the sheet up and swiped at her skin.

"Sorry, I guess suave and debonair are kind of out the window now."

He lifted himself to settle his hips between her legs and put his weight on his elbows on either side of her ribcage, then pushed up to plant a comfortable little kiss on her lips.

She was grinning when their lips parted. She hoped he still understood that she could tease, even after everything else that had happened this week.

"I don't want suave, Castle, I want you."

He dropped his forehead to her sternum and shook his head.

"Oh, you wound me!"

He laid his cheek between her breasts and looked up at her, one eyebrow raised in mock interrogation.

"So did I dream this part, or did your stomach just wake me up?"

Only Castle could pull it off while lying on top of her with his head pillowed against her breast.

She figured she was past blushing about anything after their earlier activities, but she scrunched her lips to one side in a little self-deprecating grimace.

"Yeah, kinda."

His eyes darted to her clock. She saw the wheels turning.

"Ping's is still delivering."

"Did my stomach somehow communicate directly with you that I wanted Chinese, or am I just that predictable?"

"In synch does not equate to predictable."

She looked at him with a pout as a disconcerting thought hit her.

"But if we're going to order, we have to get out of bed."

They hadn't exactly stopped to grab their phones on their way to bed.

"This is a definite downside."

He pressed his lips to her neck, just beneath her ear, and continued.

"I could probably think of a few ways to distract you from you insistent stomach."

"Mmmm. Yes, you already have."

But it growled again, completely without consulting her libido. It was his turn to laugh, just one loud guffaw.

"Apparently I have been overruled. Okay, how's this. Since we are lacking in cell phones, I'll go out there—" he gestured toward her bedroom door "—and find wherever I left mine, call in the order, search for wine in your kitchen, and then bring the fruits of my hunting and gathering back here, and you don't have to move."

She looked at him through her lashes, feigning disbelief.

"You would do that for me?"

"If you haven't figured out by now that I would do absolutely anything for you, then I have grossly underestimated your ability to ignore the obvious."

He lifted his warmth off of her, slipped out from under the covers, and found his boxers and undershirt. He spoke in mock-seriousness as he tugged them on.

"However, the next time we're in bed and need sustenance, you'd better have actual food in your fridge, or our phones better be in arm's reach, or we'd better be at my place, where there is always food in the fridge."

She smiled at him as he backed out of her bedroom door, heart on his sleeve, joy not containable in the blue eyes that didn't want to look away.

Too much warmth was welling up inside her at the thought of every one of those scenarios now being conceivable.

She reached over and turned on her bedside lamp, took a moment to stretch all her long-unused muscles.

She heard Castle ordering in Chinese. Rick loved Ping's because the guy that answered the phone most nights would put up with his terrible accent and poor grammar and still put their order in correctly. She had asked him once long ago why he was always on the phone so long when he ordered, and he'd explained that Jinfang was teaching him new vocabulary words.

There was a moment of silence after he ended the call.

The she heard his voice, quiet but urgent, as he called to her through her door.

"Kate? I think you need to come out here."

"What? I'm supposed to be the one languishing in bed in a post-coital haze. Why do I have to get up?"

"Just put on some clothes or something and come on out here."

He was worrying her now. She snatched her robe from the back of her bathroom door and rushed out with it half-tied. She slowed as she took in the site before her in her moonlit living room.

Castle had his back partly to her. She could see his profile in the moonlight, though, and his eyes were fixed on a figure staring up at her Alex Gross painting.

She stepped up behind him and he reached for her hand, then squeezed it tightly, still not breaking his gaze.

"I've been trying to figure out if this is you being caught up in the chaos or you creating the chaos."

It was her same clear, no-nonsense voice; it was the inflection she used when she practiced her closing arguments in front of Kate's dad the night before the end of a trial.

"Mom?"

Johanna turned then, looked at the pair of them, smiled when her eyes fell on their clasped hands.

"How long have you been out here?"

It had just struck her that her mom had overheard their most recent conversation, and who knows what else. A long-forgotten but easily remembered sense of daughterly outrage at this intrusion upon her privacy flickered to life.

"I wanted to come say goodbye, Katie."

Her indignation from a moment before deafened her to the meaning of her mother's words for a moment. When it registered, her heart sank. Funny that she hadn't realized it had risen a bit in the past few hours from its usual spot near the pit of her stomach. Words finally spilled out of her mouth, slightly desperate, slightly irrational.

"What? Where are you going?"

She had just come back. Not yet-not nearly long enough yet.

Her mother raised an eyebrow and quirked half a smile. Funny also how she'd never noticed her mother did that just like she did.

"You don't think I want to lurk around here all the time waiting for you two to give me grandchildren, do you? I have other places to be."

Kate's eyes went wide and she glanced briefly over at Castle, who she was surprised to see was grinning despite his best efforts to hide it.

Through the lightness of that moment, her sadness snuck back in. Her mother, whatever version of her was standing in her living room and having this conversation, had been back in her life for the better part of a week. Before this, she'd even stopped having dreams about her. She had started to forget the sound of her voice, the expressions she used, the twinkle in her eyes when she teased.

"But I'll be back when you need me."

She had been too afraid before now of ending the illusion to do the one thing she craved most, missed more than all the rest.

But now her mom was leaving anyway and there might be no other chance.

She took a hesitant half-step forward, and Rick released her hand, moved his to the small of her back to propel her.

"Go on."

He said the words quietly, just to her, giving permission for this suspension of disbelief.

As she closed the distance, she reached out, still afraid her mother was an image that would dissolve through her hands. But she didn't disappear.

Kate's fingers met the soft cotton of her mom's sweater, slid around her waist; Johanna's warm, solid arms encased her shoulders, pulled her head down into the curve of her neck.

"But I need you all the time."

Her perfume-that warm, spicy one she wore in cold weather. It filled her nose.

"Oh, baby, you want me all the time, I know that, and I wish I could make that happen. But you have the one you really need now. And knowing he's with you lets me leave feeling certain you can be whole again, that you almost are."

Kate was crying now, silently but forcefully, clutching the folds of material at her mother's back.

"I love you."

Johanna pulled away slightly, forced Kate to look up while she spoke.

"I love you so much. And I am so proud of you."

She glanced over Kate's shoulder.

"Both of you. You're going to be fine. Just take care of each other."

Rick cleared his throat—his voice sounded watery when he answered.

"We will."

When Johanna spoke again, her solemn expression had softened with a tiny grin and a gleam in her eye.

"Unfortunately now that this-" she pointed back and forth between Rick and Kate "-is actually happening, I'm not going to be able to read the rest of the Nikki Heat books."

"Mother!"

"What? They're excellent! You know how much I've always loved his stuff. You were the one who wouldn't read it. And then to have him start writing about my daughter? You have no idea. I'm just going to have to skip the R-rated material. Rick, can you put in a code word or something?"

"Enough, mom…"

She was back to the exasperated teenager. Back to that comfortable annoyance from right before…

"Kate, you never said your mom was a fangirl."

Castle was amused. Amused to the point she would never live any of this down. She looked over her shoulder to answer him.

"She is not a fangirl. She's a fanmom. Big difference."

"As much as I hate to break this up, it's time for me to go."

She pulled Kate in for another tight hug.

"I'll see you again."

"Yes, you will."

Kate opened her eyes to a different darkness. She was back in bed, clutching Rick's neck.

"Wha-"

She loosened her hold and pulled back to find him awake, wide-eyed and stunned. His arms were clutched around her, chest warm, breath coming quickly, mouth slightly agape.

"Were you…? Was I just…?"

She knew she was making no sense. None of this made sense. Why was the hair on the back of her neck standing up? Why was her heart pounding so hard she was sure Rick could feel it through her ribcage?

He engaged her eyes, shut his mouth, swallowed once, and then spoke with unruffled resolution.

"I saw her, Kate. I heard her talking and laughing. She told us to make her grandchildren. She told us she was proud. We were there. Your mother was there."

But they were back in bed, no robe, no t-shirt or boxers on, clock reading 12:18.

He continued in the same steady voice.

"I think I should call Ping's before they close."

She shook her head slightly trying to clear it, stared off for a moment.

"Yeah…"

She was trying to wrap her mind around this, but as she failed miserably at it, she realized maybe the trick was to not try quite so hard to explain it.

"Yeah, okay."

She let go of his neck, goose bumps still covering all her exposed skin.

He started to stand, but she put a hand against his chest to stop him when she noticed it.

His cell phone was on the bedside table.


End file.
